On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:19:58 -0500, "Neil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Greetings all- > This has been an interesting topic. But let me say I don't really know > that much about cell phones and the type of fees that go with them. I > have seen some ads that give you a pretty decent amount of free long > distance calls. I am thinking that this could be a decent way of using > the laptop on my sailboat when we go out for the weekends. I am sure > fees vary but approx. what are we talking about per month? > OT--I saw on one of the sailing sites about using laptops on boats. > Most say use an inverter, (asuming that the laptop bat. is 14v) but one > fellow said that he just connects directly to 12v. He said because the > differance in voltage wasn't that much, he had no problems doing this. > Has anyone on the list tried this? > cheers and what a nice fall day here in SE Virginia > Neil T. >>>> czech it out http://www.qsl.net/wa4chq > User of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client > -- Arachne V1.67, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/ Hi Neil, my Toshiba laptop is powered by 4 NiCad cells => 5V DC. They are charged by a 9 volts adaptor from the mains. I made an extra connection directly to the batteries and chrage and use the laptop from the 12..15V car battery system with two 7 volts Xmas tree bulbs in parallel between the car battery and the batteries. So the 2 bulbs are in series between the two batteries to drop the voltage and the current. For years I use this simple system during the hollydays to run amateur packet radio in the field... or to edit articles for magazines. The fall in western Europe is rain, rain and rain which is verry bad to my tomato plants :-( 73/72 de Bastiaan, PA3FFZ -- Arachne V1.61, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
